On cold and sleepy Sundays, nothing beats this roast pork with carrot chutney & sunflower cream
“Flæskesteg (roast pork with crackling) is hugely popular in Denmark. You’ll often find it sitting under a heat lamp in smørrebrød eateries. Denmark is actually one of the world’s largest producers of pork, exporting as much as 90 per cent to places as far flung as Nepal.
A pork production cooperative set up in 1890 resulted in there being three pigs for every human by 1970.
That figure has now reached five pigs per person: 25 million animals! This recipe is based on a traditional roast but the vinegar brings a little more acidity to the vegetables, balanced by the nutty cream.”
Ingredients
• 800g small carrots
• 2 onions, unpeeled
• 2 garlic bulbs
• 1 tablespoon rapeseed oil
• pinch white pepper
• 800g pork loin
For the chutney:
• 1 large onion, finely diced
• 3cm piece fresh ginger, peeled and grated
• 2 teaspoons mustard seeds
• 1 tablespoon sunflower oil
• 80ml apple cider vinegar
For the sunflower cream:
• 50g toasted sunflower seeds
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley or marjoram
• 250g creme fraiche
Method
1 Preheat the oven to 200°C. Toss the carrots, whole onions and garlic bulbs in the rapeseed oil and season with salt and a pinch of white pepper.
2 Place the pork in a large casserole dish or roasting tray and arrange the vegetables around it. Roast in the oven for 40 minutes –1 hour.
3 To be sure it’s ready, use a meat thermometer to check that the internal temperature has reached 70°C. If you don’t have one, insert a skewer into the thickest part of the meat and make sure the juices run clear.
4 For the chutney, sauté the onion, ginger and mustard seeds in the sunflower oil in a frying pan over a low heat for 3–4 minutes, until soft. Set the pan aside.
5 When the pork is ready set it aside to rest, peel the roasted onions and garlic and reserve the flesh. Chop the carrots into thirds.
6 Return the chutney pan to the stove top over a medium heat. Pour in the vinegar and any juices from the roasting tray. Use these to deglaze the onion mixture, scraping up any bits that are stuck to the pan.
7 Add the reserved garlic and onion flesh and the carrots and toss together for a couple of minutes as you would a stir-fry.
8 To make the sunflower cream, blitz together all the ingredients with a little salt for 1 minute, until smooth.
9 Serve slices of the roast pork with the chunky chutney and the sunflower seed cream on the side.
Recipe courtesy of Simon Bajada, extracted from The New Nordic
